Qualifications Needed by Certified Verification Agents - Structural Integrity of Offshore Wind Turbines - page 116

3. Marine operations. The CVA should be familiar with marine operations
from loadout to sea fastening and transportation to the site. This will
enable the CVA to document the process and identify any anomalous
conditions encountered.
4. Subsea cabling activities including trenching, burial, and connections.
The transmission cables used to interconnect the turbines within a field
and to connect to shore-based facilities require attention during instal-
lation to ensure that they are properly trenched or buried according to
the design of the system and that connections are properly completed.
The CVA should be familiar with these operations.
5. Offshore construction activities. The CVA must understand how typi-
cal offshore construction activities (e.g., launching, lifting, and erecting
the facility) are carried out and be able to document that they were
implemented successfully and where deviations occurred.
6. Installation equipment. The CVA should have an understanding of the
equipment to be used in the installation process and be able to deter-
mine that it is being used as intended for the project in a safe and reli-
able manner.
In addition, the CVA should be able to define the amount of attendance
required by the CVA at various offshore activities in conjunction with the
installation contractor and BOEMRE. The amount of attendance required
should be based on the complexity of the activity and the contractor's
experience with similar activities.
Other Aspects of CVA Qualifications
The experiences of some committee members and information provided
to the committee by presenters indicate that having CVAs for the design
phase different from those for the fabrication and installation phases is
acceptable in current offshore oil and gas practice. No restrictions on the
assignment of CVA responsibilities to different organizations for different
phases are imposed by 30 CFR 250. In practice, organizations with exper-
tise in design do not necessarily have expertise in fabrication or installa-
tion activities. Thus, it is expected that different CVAs will be responsible
for different phases unless it can be demonstrated that a single individual
or organization has sufficient expertise as outlined above to direct all or a
combination of the phases.